Circle Launches cirBTC on Ethereum as Wrapped Bitcoin Competition Widens
Circle has launched cirBTC on Ethereum, a 1:1 bitcoin-backed token designed to bring BTC liquidity into DeFi. The move puts Circle into closer competition with Coinbase’s cbBTC and BitGo-custodied wBTC in the synthetic bitcoin market.
What happened?
Circle has launched cirBTC on Ethereum, a 1:1 bitcoin-backed token designed to bring BTC liquidity into DeFi. The move puts Circle into closer competition with Coinbase’s cbBTC and BitGo-custodied wBTC in the synthetic bitcoin market.
Why it matters
Circle Internet has launched cirBTC on Ethereum, introducing a wrapped bitcoin token backed 1:1 by BTC. The company, best known for issuing the USDC stablecoin, says the token is intended to let traders use bitcoin value across decentralized finance applications.
Circle Internet has launched cirBTC on Ethereum, introducing a wrapped bitcoin token backed 1:1 by BTC. The company, best known for issuing the USDC stablecoin, says the token is intended to let traders use bitcoin value across decentralized finance applications.
The launch matters because wrapped bitcoin products are a bridge between bitcoin holdings and DeFi activity on programmable networks such as Ethereum. Bitcoin remains the largest cryptocurrency by value, but its base network does not offer the same native DeFi functionality as Ethereum, creating demand for tokenized BTC representations.
Circle is positioning cirBTC for institutions that already allocate heavily to bitcoin and may be familiar with the company’s infrastructure through USDC. The source notes that USDC is the second-largest stablecoin, with a market capitalization of more than $75 billion.
The market Circle is entering is competitive but still relatively small compared with bitcoin itself. Wrapped bitcoin, or wBTC, launched in 2019 and remains the largest synthetic BTC token at about $7.3 billion in market capitalization, while Coinbase’s cbBTC, introduced in 2024, is just under $5.4 billion.
CoinDesk reported that the combined market capitalization of synthetic bitcoin tokens is roughly $12.5 billion to $13.5 billion, equal to about 1% of bitcoin’s total value of around $1.25 trillion. Circle’s entry could therefore intensify competition with Coinbase and BitGo Holdings for institutional demand in wrapped BTC products.